My Cardboard Balcony

Media Addiction by Belinda Roddie Something tells me I ought to yank the needle out of my arm before it draws out all my livelihood, sucking out my soul and leaving my flesh hanging from my bones like a white flag pitifully waving a sad surrender. But the screen is intoxicating, and the drug it offers is one that causes panic, tremors, tears, and anger. Reality is hard to swallow already, so the dispersal of rage gives it a kick I desperately need to get through one more fatalistic day. Once my fingers start flying across the keyboard, I feel free for only a handful of minutes before Time Herself shushes me and brings me a kiss that leaves my lips dry like corn husks on a hot, Iowan summer day. I would do anything to shut off the wi-fi and ignore the tyranny unfolding in front of me like bad origami, but the taste of information is too savory for me to resist, and the news just keeps coming in, and I know one day these voices may be distorted, or never be...

Citizens of America, citizens of England, citizens of Spain and France and Sweden, citizens of Russia, citizens of Peru, of both North and South Korea and Indonesia, too, citizens of China, citizens of Japan, citizens of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, all preparing for the inevitable, the human rights raid, I say to all of you: Be very afraid.

They said that one day, the stars would fall, one by one, like white hot snow descending on a barren valley. We would sit by our windows then, watching each fireball descend, while comets streaked the sky like cold, icy ribbons on parade. Of course, the stars wouldn't fall; they couldn't. They remained in their cosmic cradles, unwilling to sleep for another twenty billion years.

One Fabulous Aristocrat by Belinda Roddie I want a dish of caviar and a glass of Chardonnay to cleanse my palate of my sins and get me through the day. Don't tell Mom I've been drinking, and don't tell Dad I'm gay. I'll keep my ship from sinking and start living life my way.

Harrison, my father's best friend, was ready to put his daughter Max in boarding school. His reasoning: She was being rebellious, not doing well enough academically, and overall seeming to be psychologically unstable. Two of those reasons were false. The true reason - the rebellion - was partially due to me, and all the times I picked her up from her house late at night so we could steal booze from the liquor store and kiss in my car.

My wife wore a rose quartz necklace that glittered in the sun. It caught the warm rays so delicately that it was almost like a mother cradling a fragile sleeping child. My wife never liked to put on any other jewelry, and so, as we sat on the porch together, she would bathe her body in the daylight, and the crystal that settled on her chest would become the brightest part of her.

by Belinda Roddie The raindrops glistened on her eyelashes as we danced. The rain was heavy, and it was cold. It made the grass clump against our shoes and the gray pavement a slick, oily black. It made nearby cars shine and lamp lights glitter with dozens of metallic stars. "Twirl for me, sugar," she murmured in my ear as she pulled herself into me. I twirled for her. "That's a good girl." When we were done dancing, we went outside and took off our wet coats, and we settled into wooden chairs before she put a kettle on the stove. The kitchen smelled like rain and tea leaves and salt. I never knew salt had a distinct odor until now. I breathed it in, and I was by the sea hundreds of miles away. "Do you dance in the rain often?" I asked her. "Not often. I could get sick." "It's very cinematic of you." "Oh?" "Romantic. People dancing in the rain. Kissing in the rain." "Have we kissed yet?...